Taruskin on the "Defense of Classical Music" Pt. 1
John Gibbonsreviews:
Who Needs
Classical Music?
Julian Johnson
Classical Music,
Why Bother?
Joshua Fineberg
Why Classical Music
Still Matters
Lawrence Kramer
Richard Taruskin begins his essay, “The Musical Mystique” by rightly deriding a pseudo-meaningful, pretentiously artsy-fartsy “experiment” perpetrated by violinist Joshua Bell at the behest of A Washington Times reporter in which Bell posted himself in the most annoying and least appropriate place in the subway system and played Bach on his priceless fiddle, in order to record the supposedly a-cultural apathy of the average commuter. This sophomoric experiment hardly needed to be made. You could go into a doctor’s office where the piped in Muzak might be a movement from, let’s say, a Mozart piano concerto, and record the apathy of the patients. In fact, its arguable that authentic lovers of so-called “Classical” music are exactly the sort of persons who object to the trivialization and degradation of music represented by its infliction on a defenseless commuter or patient population that is given no chance to decide what it wants to hear, or if it wants to hear anything at all.
If I have to hear music in a dentist’s office, restaurant, or subway, I vastly prefer that it be bad music. Not only because bad music is less distracting, but because I like to hear great music as a deliberate choice, with a relatively formal listening posture. Real music lovers don’t want music all the time, and are disinclined toward the use of background music. This includes real music lovers who prefer popular genres, as well.
So far so good, Taruskin’s point is agreed. But then he comments, “In one respect, though, the caper was instructive. It offered answers to those who wonder why classical music now finds itself friendless in its moment of self perceived crisis-a long moment that has given rise in recent years to a whole literature of elegy and jeremiad.” Why are sideshows like the Bell experiment presumed to prove anything about classical music generally? Aren’t commuters, etc. smart enough to recognise that silly stunts don’t sully Bach, or prove anything at all about the viability of classical music? And is classical music friendless? Here in Chicago we recently had a magnificent performance of Mahler’s 6th symphony. I’ve been discussing it all week with my friends and students. Aren’t we friends of classical music? Or is it a numbers game? There aren’t enough friends, perhaps. But why would I care that 99 per cent of the American population at large doesn’t give a hoot about Mahler? What sort of “obligation” does anyone have to any kind of music? I think Taruskin rightly considers that no one has any sort of obligation. Again, this point is agreed. We would indeed have a problem if the Chicago Symphony orchestra went away. We would have a problem if less visible local orchestras went away, as well. But this doesn’t seem to be happening. Millions of people sort of liking something a little bit means less than hundreds of people deeply committed to something, provided the threshold of at least minimal commercial viability is passed.
Why all the insecurity? It couldn’t possibly matter to me what Taruskin thinks about Schoenberg; he doesn’t love it, and therefore doesn’t understand it. It means a great deal to me what Pierre Boulez thinks about Schoenberg, however. But it doesn’t matter to me what Pierre Boulez thinks about Shostakovich. He doesn’t love it, and therefore doesn’t understand it. But it matters a great deal to me what Richard Taruskin thinks about Shostakovich. I personally dislike almost all popular music with which I’m acquainted. So what. It’s not because I’m an elitist Teutonic racist, either. Ironically, Taruskin, who loves classical music and has given his life to the subject, doesn’t appear to acknowledge the perfectly possible sincerity with which one can abhor popular music and be exclusively inclined to the classical repertory, with no other guiding principle than personal taste. The 99 percent of the population that prefers various articles from popular genres neither intimidates me, nor is in a position to force their taste on me.
Taruskin takes plenty of shots at hoity-toity classical music lovers, with occasional justification. But he could as well take some shots at the sort of idiot who likes certain pop styles, who expresses ludicrous sentiments such as “Why don’t you forget about those out-dated European guys, and listen to music that normal people like.” I’ve heard plenty of nonsense like this in my time. It’s a kind of reverse snobbery. I’m tempted to respond in such situations, “If you’ll carfully listen to Die Frau Ohne Schatten, I’ll carfully listen to Doggy-bone Snoop’s latest album. Two can play at that game, mister!
Reader Comments (8)
John,
I know that this site is dedicated to very serious
discussions regarding the great composers and their music. Please forgive me for the following thoughts.
We have now completed exactly one-half of the 2007
NFL season. I believe it would be very appropriate
for you to compose your own "SYMPHONIE- FANTASTIQUE"
inspired by the play of Randy Moss and Tom Brady.
Paul Greenawalt
I've been yapping 'bout them guys for years. Arthur Honneger has a tone poem called "Rugby".
While I greatly enjoyed reading the WaPo piece on Joshua Bell, I could not condone it as an "experiment" because it was an experiment without upfront methodology or success criteria. What were they trying to test? The recognizability of Joshua Bell? Whether the audience had enough musicianship to recognize that Joshual Bell plays better than your average busker? (Or was it the idea he DOESN'T play any better, but just got lucky?) Whether the passerby would even notice that music isn't normally there? How a $1,000-a-minute star would react to indifference? What? Turn out, the author had no idea what the outcome would be, but was prepared to overlay any outcome onto a predetermined ideological framework about philistinism or whatever. The author tipped his hand by discounting the $20 tossed in by the woman who recognized Bell. See, she messed up the curve because she DID notice (and comment on) what an unusual treat she was getting. And not counting that, Bell collected $35 in 45 minutes -- in a very poor place to locate a street musician. To me, that seems like "success." But let's not allow that to get in the way of our cultural diatribe.
Last week during dinner in Cusco (Peru), my wife and I were shocked to hear the local musican play Simon and Garfunkel on his one-man band of guitar, pan pipes, rattle, and drum. A few hours later I read that S&G had "borrowed" a "classical" Peruvian folk song "El Condor Pasa" and popularized it. The melody was quite luscious on the pipes and I am now very glad to have left this performer a token of appreciation rather than to Mr. Bell.
I take some issue with this part of your interesting post:
"It couldn’t possibly matter to me what Taruskin thinks about Schoenberg; he doesn’t love it, and therefore doesn’t understand it. It means a great deal to me what Pierre Boulez thinks about Schoenberg, however. But it doesn’t matter to me what Pierre Boulez thinks about Shostakovich. He doesn’t love it, and therefore doesn’t understand it. But it matters a great deal to me what Richard Taruskin thinks about Shostakovich."
You fallaciously assume that if you understand something it will automatically lead to a love for the thing in question. You don't allow for the role of aesthetics. And you conflate "understanding" with "appreciation" too. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I understand Adolf Hitler's motivations for terrorizing his own people and opening the concentration camps in the 1930s and 1940s. But I certainly don't "love" these things. I understand everything about American Idol, but I still find the whole affair gaudy and boring. I don't "like" it. I love my car, but I don't have the foggiest idea of how to fix most problems it might have in the process of breaking down. Similiarly, I "appreciate" Schoenberg's reasons for his role in the emergence of dodecaphony, but much of the music is not my favorite. (I've heard all of Schoenberg's 12-tone works and have studied several in detail.)
Here are some questions for you to consider:
You claim to not like most popular music. Does that mean you only understand some of it....the stuff you like? By your stated standard, you'd have to say "yes", right?
Did you only like Schoenberg (or any other music) when you understood it? If so, what drew you to any music at all if you did not understand and (by logical extension of your premise) did not like it in the first place?
Do you like spinach, brussels sprouts, turnips, or (insert any other food)? If yes, did you always? And do you like these foods because you understand them? Could you go to a restaurant and order your least favorite dish and then like it automatically after reading about how much work and exactly what went into it? Could you "appreciate" the dish and still not "like" it?
What do you mean by "understand"? Are there degrees? Which ones? And which ones constitute "liking" something? If you almost understand something, do you almost like it? Do you like Schoenberg's 12-tone music because you know everything about it? Is it possible you could like it more one day if you only understood more about it? Do you have favorites? And if so, are your favorites the pieces you understand the most? Could you not read up on the others and, by so doing, have new favorites?
You mention that Taruskin: "...doesn’t appear to acknowledge the perfectly possible sincerity with which one can abhor popular music and be exclusively inclined to the classical repertory, with no other guiding principle than personal taste."
This is contradicting yourself a bit. Will you not rather acknowledge that one's taste for something is not always tied to one's understanding of it?
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